


Shuttle

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 Round Two - Team Discipline [19]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-21
Updated: 2011-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rosethorn woke before dawn the morning of the 16th day of Barley Moon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shuttle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com

Rosethorn woke before dawn the morning of the 16th day of Barley Moon. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and slipped into her habit. Two mugs of tea and two servings of breakfast were on the kitchen table a half an hour later. She gathered the lot of it onto a tray and completed the set with a gift wrapped in yellow silk, followed by a red and yellow rose entwined around each other at the stem. Rosethorn grinned at her handiwork and hoisted the tray.

            Lark was still asleep, as was to be expected—she tended to be the later riser. Rosethorn settled the tray on the bedside table and sat upon the bed. She hummed a tune as she reached to stroke Lark’s hair, starting at her forehead and temples. The woman stirred some. “Mmm?”

            “Good morning,” Rosethorn murmured, her smile bright and awake by comparison. “I brought you something.”

            “Not another piglet,” Lark grumbled, still lost in the endless land of dreams behind her eyelids. “The last one soiled my good leggings…why are we training in a barn? Bring me the peacock at once!”

            Rosethorn laughed. Lark did tend to have quite the imagination.

            The laughter woke Lark more thoroughly. She turned in bed and stared up at Rosethorn through sleepy eyes, her smile loopy and lop-sided. “Mmm hello Rosie. Why are we awake?”

            “I brought you something—your favourite.” Rosethorn pulled the tray from the table and placed it over Lark’s lap on its unfolding legs. “Morning meal in bed.”

            Lark’s eyes lit up. “Rosie, you didn’t!”

            “I did. I’m spoiling you today.”

            “And there’s enough for two—you’re joining me?”

            “Yes. Today my ‘no eats in the sheets’ rule is temporarily abolished.” Rosie chuckled at Lark’s visible excitement. “Tuck in.”

            Lark obeyed. Rosethorn joined her; after the first few bites and sips of tea, Lark was more able to speak as an awake and aware adult.

            When they finished, Rosie nudged the yellow-wrapped gift. “May I tempt you with daybreak?”

            “I don’t see why not, as I’m already up.” Lark smiled. “Can I tempt you for a nap together, later? You know how I love a mid-day sleep with company…”

            Rosethorn  chuckled and removed the tray. “You and your traveller’s traditions. Sure, since you’re being so _accommodating_.”

            Lark grinned. “Anything for you.” She slipped out of bed unthinking and Rosethorn found herself unable to look away. Whenever they had no novices to watch over, Lark took to sleeping unclothed; Rosethorn could not pretend to mind. She did flush some as thoughts arose of the evening they would surely share together.

            They made it up to the roof and settled themselves within a warm blanket just in time for the sun to touch over the tree-tops. Rosethorn passed the gift along a second time, tucking the roses—thorns plucked off, this time—into the pocket of Lark’s habit. She urged, “Go on—open it.”

            “Why do I get the feeling you’re more impatient than I?”

            “Because it’s the truth. Less talking, more opening!”

            Lark dipped her head as her eyebrows rose; she laughed as she untied the gift and slid the silk off. It revealed a box, which she opened…and gasped immediately. “Rosie, it’s beautiful!” She removed the loom shuttle from the box and fingered the smooth wood of it, poked her fingers to either end and toyed with the inner bobbin. “It’s _perfect_ _!_ ”

            “I heard you damning your shuttle to Hakkoi’s hottest hellfires the other week and thought it was time for a replacement. This one is flowering dogwood—it should last longer.” Rosethorn grinned, pleased with her observational skills. “Turn it over.”

            Lark followed the instruction. An inscription was burned into the back with a fine-tipped tool, all looping letters and meticulous care. _From garden to loom, let these patterns bloom. Rosie._ A rose was burned beneath her name, but the stem (and affixed thorns) journeyed under the words to the left end, where a lark gripped between thorns.

            The woman had no words, but threw her arms around Rosethorn instead. “Thank you, Rosie—it’s more than I could have ever asked for.”

            “Which is why you got it. Because you didn’t ask,” Rosethorn clarified, grinning. She captured Lark’s lips in a quick kiss and turned to watch the sun rise steadily higher, head on Lark’s shoulder. “Happy birthday, Lark.”

            Lark leaned her cheek against Rosie’s morning-spiked hair and smiled to the sun, acknowledging another full and joyous year of her life was ending—and commencing—at once.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! (:


End file.
